Disclaimer: Nothing recognizable is mine. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: I'm going to be really honest, I'm very excited for you guys to start reading this chapter/episode re-write. The first part, specifically. Not only am I proud of how I did the characterization, which is something I don't feel that often, but you guys finally learn how Meredith and Derek met. I've read a lot of different "married before SGH" fanfics, but I don't think I've once seen a version where they met this way, and I really like what I came up with. If you'd like to, take the time to review, I'd love to hear what you all think about a section that I take a lot of pride in. Plus, this series of chapters, Where Does the Good Go is my longest group yet!
Additionally, I'm currently half-way through an angsty future AU fic (AU because Derek is alive because I will always write fics where he is alive okay) so stay tuned for that, it will probably posted sometime this week. It's a three parter about a subject I have literally no knowledge on, but I like the fic so whatever.
One last little thing, basically today marks the start of finals week for me (yay and by yay I mean I'm going to die) so while I will keep writing while I procrastinate on essays, this is the last update for a bit, I just wanted to get y'all off that cliff)
Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive
Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go
Look me in the eye and promise no love's like our love
Look me in the heart and unbreak broken, it won't happen
Where Does the Good Go? - Tegan and Sara
Intimacy is a four-syllable word for, "Here are my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger and enjoy." It's both desired and feared, difficult to live with, and impossible to live without. Intimacy also comes attached to life's three R's: Relatives, romance and roommates. There are some things you can't escape. And other things you just don't want to know.
A tense silence fills the room as my roommates process the fact that our boss is standing in our living room holding my hand. George keeps opening and closing his mouth, like a fish struggling to breathe out of water. In the arm chair across from him Cristina relaxes and takes a long sip from her bottle of beer, smirking as she watches our friends learn that my husband is Derek Shepherd. I'm holding my breath, waiting for someone to say something. Derek feels me tense up and gives the hand he is clutching a quick but reassuring squeeze, letting me know he is in this crap with me. Nervously, I glance between George and Izzie, trying to gage their reactions. For the most part, George seems shocked and confused, maybe a little hurt by the fact that his crush on me will most definitely not be reciprocated. It's Izzie's reaction that has me worried. She's glaring at me as if I'm a pariah.
The silence is broken by Izzie slamming the bottle she had been holding onto the coffee table, angrily. "I can't believe this," She says with venom towards me, as she storms out of the room and into the kitchen. Derek makes a move to talk to her but I grab his upper arm and stop him. I ask him to explain the situation to George, the fact that we're married but we didn't want it to complicate our work life, as I go do the same to Izzie.
Cautiously, I enter the kitchen. Izzie's anger seems to radiate off of her in waves, I can feel it from the doorway as she stands clear across the room obsessively washing dishes. I've known her long enough now to know that she copes through cleaning, a relatively good quality in a roommate.
"Iz," say her name as if it is a question as I slip into the room. She doesn't turn around but she slams the plate she had been washing back down into the sink. Making her stance more aggressive, she places her hands down on either side of the counter and pushes her weight into them.
She hunches into her shoulders and huffs, "This is unbelievable, Meredith."
Stepping further into the room, I reach out a hand towards Izzie and plead, "Let me explain."
"Explain?" Izzie scoffs as she spins around to glare at me, "What is there to explain? You're cheating on your husband with our boss! You're throwing away your marriage! For what? A few good surgeries?"
I stop dead in my tracks, my mouth hanging open in shock. It takes a moment to process Izzie's words but before I know it I'm giggling. Izzie's still staring me down and her rage pushes me into full out laughter. It's absolutely hilarious to me. Somehow, with Derek and I walking into the house, Izzie assumed that I was cheating on my husband rather than the fact that is Derek the person I married.
"Stop laughing," Izzie says, annoyance mixing with her anger, "This isn't funny."
"I'm sorry," I say as I try to compose myself. Sucking in a few deep breaths I manage to stop hysterics. I wipe away a stray tear from my eye that had fallen due to intensity of my laughter, "It's not," I pause for another deep breath, "It's not what you think."
Izzie argues with me, "No. It's exactly what I think. You went to Dartmouth. Your mother is Ellis Grey. You grew up... Look at his house! You know, you walk into the OR, and there isn't anyone who doubts that you should be there. I grew up in a trailer park. I went to state school. I put myself through med school by posing in my underwear. You know, I walk into the OR, and everyone hopes I'm the nurse. And you have a husband. A great husband, a hot husband, I assume judging from the sex sounds that kept me up the other night and you are throwing it all away, Meredith. All of it!"
"It's not about the surgeries, Iz. It's not about getting ahead," I move across the room and take a seat on one of the bar stools, holding my head up with a hand, "He's the hot husband, Iz. McDreamy is McHusband."
"Oh my god," Izzie says, her eyes going wide as she realizes, "I'm an idiot." She leans against the refrigerator and slides slowly to the ground before asking, "Really? Shepherd's your husband."
I chuckle, "Yeah, he is."
Her head shoots up and she looks at me as if just through sight she'll know the truth. She asks, "How long? I mean, you didn't marry him to get in the program, did you?"
Shaking my head, I climb off the bar stool and move around the kitchen island to sit beside Izzie on the ground. Once settled down, I explain how Derek and I met. Before I went to Dartmouth for undergrad, I had taken a gap year working as an EMT in New York City. I had picked New York over Boston because it meant I wouldn't be living with Ellis, but she wouldn't let me go any further than New York. I got the job because I had taken EMT classes throughout high school, I even worked as one during the weekends of my senior year. I had only been in New York for a week when my rig got a call for a motorcycle accident.
I remember the scene so vividly. Our rig pulled up at the corner to see a car crumbled against a pole, the driver unconscious with his head against the steering wheel and deflated airbag, a motorcycle, smashed against a fire hydrant that was now shooting water feet into the air and covering the a man bleeding beside it. Springing into action, I had ran towards the motorcyclist, he didn't have a helmet and there was a massive gash on his forehead. It was the most blood I had ever seen, he was pooled in it. Immediately I applied pressure to his wound and my fellow EMTs helped me move him onto a gurney. The drive to New York-Presbyterian Hospital was short and we treated the man through the entire trip. He had been unconscious the entire drive, up until we pulled up to the E.R. We were unloading him when he woke up and grabbed my hand. He could barely open his eyes due to the blood and wounds and he clung to me as if I was the only thing connecting him to planet Earth.
As we rolled him in, I asked his name and if he remembered what happened, to no response. Once in the E.R. the motorcyclist continued clutching my hand. Surgeons surrounded us and began questioning him. I tried to loosen his grip and back away so that the doctors could work, but he wouldn't let go. His voice scratchy, but filled with terror, the man begged, "Don't leave me." It was the first thing he had said since the crash.
Looking down at him, his expression was filled with pain and terror. Moving my free hand to his hair, I pushed it back and moved his dark curls away from the blood, "I won't," I promised him.
The rest of my team loaded back onto the ambulance after handing the motorcyclist off to the doctors, but I decided to stay. Through everything he had begged me to stay and if something went wrong during the surgery, I didn't want his last request to go unfulfilled. I waited the entire time he was in surgery, I even sat with his family. Four sisters and his mother showed up in a panic after the hospital called them. I explained the situation to them and kept them calm. His family told me all about him, he was actually a surgeon himself but worked in private practice. They told me all about Derek Shepherd and the more they said the more interested I became in him. After three hours, when the surgeons came out and updated his family, I felt relief to hear he was okay. His family asked me to join him in his patient room and when he woke up, mine was the first face he saw. A small smile spread on his face when his eyes fell on me. "You're real," He seemed to breathe me in as he stared at me, "I thought you were an angel."
Derek was in the hospital for a week after his accident. I visited him everyday after my shift. Despite our age difference, me being only nineteen and him being twenty-nine, Derek and I connected. I was with him as he signed his release forms from the hospital and as soon as his signature was down he looked up at me, asking me on a date. Reluctantly, I agreed, and as they say, the rest is history.
When I finish telling Izzie the story of how Derek and I met, she seems to be looking at me in a totally different way. Any anger has slipped away as I was speaking but now there is a sparkle in her eye that I can't recognize. "Damn it, you poor girl," she sighs,"You're all, uh, mushy and warm and full of secret feelings."
"I hate you," I reply as she wraps her arm through mine. She settles against me, and I'm relieved that any anger she had as dissipated. Smiling a little, I lay my head on her shoulder, my cheek pressed against her. For a while, Izzie and I sit together in comfortable silence. We only break apart when there's a light knock on the kitchen door. Looking up, we see Derek standing in the doorway. He tells me that he's heading up stairs for the night and gives Izzie a quick goodnight. Derek avoids making eye contact with Izzie, nervous after her outburst when we had arrived home earlier. Nodding, I decide I'll join him. Detaching myself from Izzie, I follow Derek upstairs.
As soon as our bedroom door closes behind us, we both sigh. Derek wraps his arms around me and buries my head against his chest. We're both quiet for a few seconds, thinking about the conversations we both had just experienced. Slowly, a warm chuckle starts to shake Derek's chest. Before we know it, both of us are in hysterics, falling onto our bed laughing. Despite Izzie's screaming and accusations, all in all the roommate reveal had been better than expected.
Rolling onto his back, Derek slows his laughter and says, "George told me not to hurt you," I shift onto my side so that our eyes meet, "I didn't have the heart to tell the poor kid it's a little too late in our relationship for him to adopt a protective big brother role, seeing as we're already married."
Propping myself up on my elbows, I ask, just to be sure, "But you did tell him we're married, right?"
"Oh," Derek feigns ignorance, "That's what we were supposed to be talking about?" In response I grab the nearest pillow and whack my husband with it. He retaliates by rolling over and trapping me in his arms as he tickles me. As we both resume our laughter from earlier, I know, not only did I make the right decision to tell our roommates about our marriage, but that there is no place I would rather be than in my husband's arms.